I know
what you're thinking—not another breakout game! My
first breakout game came on my Atari Falcon about 12 years
ago and it was nothing new even then. You know the drill,
the object of the game is to clear the screen of bricks
using a sliding paddle and bouncing ball. Using the paddle,
deflect the ball into the bricks, thereby destroying them,
and keep this up until all the bricks are gone. While the
object of Meteor is the same, this version of breakout
is different in both style, design and game play.

Instead
of the usual paddle you're are playing with a space ship.
The usual spherical bouncing ball is replaced with an irregularly
shaped meteor that doesn't bounce quite as predictably.
There are enemy robots that guard the bricks making them
all the more difficult to hit, and if that wasn't enough,
some of these robots are armed and try to destroy your
meteor by dropping missiles and bombs on it. All is not
lost though as certain bricks will give you the ability
to shoot back with bullets and missiles of your own. Other
bricks will change your meteor into a fire ball or a plasma
ball. Your space ship’s deflector can change sizes,
and the speed of your meter can be increased or decreased
depending on what special brick you destroy. Now all this
may even sound a little familiar as there have been other
similarly equipped breakout games. Where Meteor really
distinguishes itself from the pack is in the game play.
Rich graphics and sound effects bring the game to life,
especially in the high resolution versions (the game looked
terrific on the Zire 71 with its superbly bright, clean
screen, and even better on the Sony TH55 with its higher
resolution). There are 3 different difficulty levels and
9 different start screens that you can access at any time.
Each start screen has 10 episodes so not only do you not
have to start each game at the same screen but there are
90 levels in total to play. That’s a lot of hours
with no repetition. Enhance the game playing fun with a
starting meteor count of 10 instead of the usual 3. Unlike
other breakout games where you find yourself playing the
same screen time after time after losing the third ball,
with 10 meteors to play you'll encounter endless numbers
of new screens.

Stepping even
farther away from the traditional Breakout mold is the
fact that you don't use the PDA buttons to
move your space ship from side to side. Instead, you slide
it across the screen using the stylus—very slick.
Another really nice addition is the ability to pause the
game in progress. Unfortunately you can't turn your PDA
off with the game paused and return to it later. In fact
you can't turn your PDA off at all until you quit the game
entirely. Too bad for your battery if you forget, and just
close the PDA’s cover. My only other gripe is that
there's no way to save a game. I would love it if I could
just go from level to level with no repetition. With any
luck, we can look for that feature in upcoming versions.

We tested Meteor on both the Palm Zire 71 and the Sony
Clie TH55 (Hi Res) and besides a small problem getting
the sound to work on the Palm install (I was a little optimistic,
expecting both the game and the sound files to work from
the memory stick), the game ran beautifully on both PDAs.
Meteor is far more than the usual breakout game and offers
hours, days, and for the less coordinated, weeks of game
play. Recommended.